The Mother-Child Bond
by WonderPickle
Summary: Happy and Toby have a talk directly following the last scene in 4x03. Quintis one-shot.


**I have a lot of feels.**

 **Happy Scorpion Monday!**

* * *

Palms balanced on the table as she leaned forward, Happy rocked on her heels. Her eyebrows furrowed deep crease lines into her forehead. Without turning, she rewatched both the Dineens' reunion hug and the live deer feed. Over and over in her head. She had been for the last five minutes.

Sometime during the case, her chest clenched and her breaths fell unsteady. They hadn't returned to normal yet. She remained uneasy, uncomfortable.

She recognized Toby's hand pressed against her lower back.

Nudging her ear with his nose, he whispered gently, "What's wrong, love?"

Happy shook her head. "I don't know," she muttered.

Slowly, Toby rubbed his free hand across her stomach. "I might have a sneaking suspicion."

Leaning back into him, she pushed an unusually deep breath from her nostrils.

She reached for the fingers pressing into her shirt. Grateful they were there, she encircled her own tightly around them. "Watching Paige's mothering instincts kick in...it was…"

"Envy inducing?"

"Weird."

With a pucker of his lips, Toby comfortingly kissed beneath her earlobe. "It's not wrong to feel that way."

"I got _jealous_ when I saw Paige reunite with Ralph today." Her knuckles whitened. "And I got jealous when we watched Jane with her baby. A damn _deer_."

Shifting, he put less than an inch of distance between his nose and her skin. "Happy-"

"No, I'm not saying-" she untangled from his arms, stepping towards the cabinets, "We've only been married a number of weeks, doc. I don't want-"

"But you're still jealous?"

Happy's hand stretched across her forehead. "I don't know. I guess?"

He gave her the knowing doctor look. "I think _yes_. Y'know, it's been a year since-"

" _Yeah_. It's _been_ a _year_." Dropping her gaze, she leaned backwards into the countertop. "I'm over it."

Slightly, Toby raised his brows. "That was a time when you had to do more healing than you were prepared for. Between the strain on our relationship game-the loss of the baby positive sign-and the horribly messy love triangle-darling, it was a lot to handle. That's a sensitive spot."

"I doubt that's the source of-" she gestured at her tense shoulders, "this."

Skeptical, he took a step closer. "And you're sure about that?"

"Whatever I say is usually on the money," Happy countered.

Toby reached for her hands, contemplating. Despite angling her gaze in the opposite direction, she let him. "Okay," he suggested. "Maybe this isn't about our baby. Maybe this is about _you_ , baby."

Her head snapped up. "And that's _not_ what this conversation's been about so far?"

He tightened his gentle hold on her fingers. "The absence of the mother-child bond in your life, perhaps?" Chest freezing, Happy stilled, prompting a lip quirk from Toby. "Ah. Struck a nerve."

She scrunched her nose. "Yeah, watching Bambi and Co strung the wrong cord, but not like _that_."

"I think it's _exactly_ like that." Toby cupped his hands on either side of her head, brushing his fingertips on her hair.

"But observing mother-and-kid on the daily doesn't usually affect me."

"There's a number of reasons it did today," Toby answered. "Because a year later is sneaking up on us, because we're a legitimate married couple now," he smoothed her raven locks, "or maybe because you watched a mother flirting with death stay alive for her baby. And that's not what happened to _you_ three decades ago."

The outer shell surrounding her voice started to crack. She swallowed the remainder. "Fair point."

"Not that I ever want you in pain," Toby said softly, "but you need to recognize this. Allow yourself to feel it without getting irritated it's there in the first place."

"I know."

Nodding towards Paige, Walter, and Ralph in the other room, he kept his eyes trained on Happy. "One day we're gonna get what they have. And you're gonna be the best momma there ever was. You'll be there, every step of the way. I promise you, baby, there will be a first meeting, reunion hugs, late night movies-all of it."

She sighed, and he brought her into his chest. "Until then we just gotta figure it all out."

"We'll be ready someday soon, sugarplum."


End file.
